How much is too much?

As plans for a revamped downtown London riverfront continue to generate buzz, a newly-unveiled research project led by Western University geography professor Adam Yates offers a sober reminder: water quality in the Thames River watershed still needs improvement.

“They can do all those great initiatives but if the water quality from upstream isn’t good enough, you’re still going to get algae and all the things people think are yucky about rivers,” Yates said October 19 from the Adelaide Pollution Control Plant, where he helped reveal the Thames River Experimental Stream Sciences (TRESS) centre.

An outdoor science experiment nestled behind the plant near Adelaide Street and Kipps Lane, the TRESS centre is a collection of individual pumps cycling water through shallow boxes designed to simulate various river conditions as closely as possible. The idea, Yates explained, is to create a controlled environment in order to study the effects of contaminants that find their way into river systems through urban and rural runoff.

His team’s current focus is phosphorous, a contaminant being blamed for growing algae blooms in bodies of water such as Lake Erie, for example.

“Right now we’re really looking at eutrofication (water pollution) and the effects of phosphorous on river systems and essentially trying to identify the quantity of phosphorous our rivers can … handle or assimilate before we actually get to a potentially degraded state,” Yates said.

The research could offer a new tool to inform water quality management practices in the Thames watershed and beyond.

“Ultimately we can look at any contaminant that we want,” Yates said. “We’re really generating more informed science that’ll let us make better decisions about what we add to the river and how much we add and how we go about trying to decide (where to put our mitigation efforts). Do we upgrade our sewage treatment plants? Do we improve our storm sewer systems? What do we do? Where is the best place to go given what we need to see in the river?”

The TRESS centre, with funding from the Ministry of the Environmental and Climate Change, Environment Canada, and the National Science and Engineering Research Council, got off the ground in May. Yates said three sets of experiments began this year with enough funding for now to last another season next summer.

“It’s an ongoing battle to maintain funding but a lot of agencies in government are recognizing how important rivers are and so that’s making our job a lot easier,” Yates said.

Partners in Yates’ research include the City of London (they’re providing services at the TRESS centre’s location), the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and Thames River Clear Water Revival.

“We’re always looking for improvements for management decisions on the river,” said Pat Donnelly, the city’s urban watershed program manager. “We have 43 kilometres of the river, but it’s much larger than that. We share in managing the Thames River; this is an opportunity for us to be directly involved in some cutting edge research and very applicable to what we do.”

London releases an annual report on the Thames River’s water quality, available online. The Upper Thames River Conservation Authority’s watershed report cards come out every five years and are also available online.